Healthy Mind, Happy Heart Wellington, New Zealand

Month: June 2016

Did you know your brain is wired to focus on negative things and to quickly forget about positive things? Because that’s what helping for survival!
However that makes us easily forget all the good things we do.
If you want to feel more postive about yourself, you need to train your brain to focus on the things that are good about you. This might feel a bit uneasy at first, but you will get good at it, really quickly!

So this week, every day, take a moment to pause and think about what was good about you so far today. And when you think about it, also bring back all the sensations about it. The sounds, the smells, what did you see, how did it feel. That is important to really make the change.

Have a great week!
<3

ps I hope the people that planned to plant persil all around the Wellington Station, feel really good about themselves. Because I love it! Did you know??

This week builds upon last week’s workout. If you’re not feeling the way you want to feel, first you can calm yourself down by focussing on your breathing.

The next step you can take, is to notice your thinking. Often what we feel, is caused by what we think. When you learn to be more mindful of your thoughts, you will discover the thoughts and regular patterns of thinking that cause unwanted emotions. For example thoughts that start with “I should” of “I should not” give you stress. Or you might have other unhelpful thoughts.

So this week, try to get some insight in your unhelpful thoughts and thought patterns.

It is important to realise that when things happen, emotions will happen too. It’s normal to feel upset when sad things happen! That’s when you need comforting.

Have a great week!

Like the picture? Lovely gift from a friend! Who are you going to spoil this week?

Sunday was a great day to chill at home, the library, or at a museum! How did you spend it?? I got through loads of laundry and finished some crochet projects I have been working on for Little Sprouts for some time.

The image below is of a creative installation in the Christchurch Art Gallery. It hangs in front of the wall, and the shadows are part of the artwork, it’s awesome. It’s different from every angle. And you know, you are just like that! A beautiful piece of art, you can discover something new, everytime you look!

Mindfulness can help you by increasing your self-awareness in a healthy way. Learn to observe your self, your thoughts and your feelings. Learn to embrace yourself with kindness and acceptance when things are rough.

This takes practice, but you can learn it! Just take one step at the time. To be able to cope with difficult emotions, you can try to focus on your breathing first. As this will calm your nervous system and that will help you to regain your zen. You get a clear mind and a better view to investigate what it is, that is upsetting you. Is it something that has just happened? Is it having some negative thoughts? Just take your time to focus on your breathing, and to investigate and coach yourself in a kind way through this.

hope you are having a nice relaxed weekend. Did you go to Armagaddon? Or the NZ Art Show? Or maybe both?

Here’s another Mindfulness Monday Workout for you!

If you want to live a long, happy and healthy life, one of the things you have to be mindful of, is your stresslevels. You probably know that too much stress is bad for the body and mind, but did you know that not enough stress is also not recommended? You have to find yourself in the right stress frame, we actually need stress to perform best, but not too much! The ideal amount of stress is called eustress. We also need time to recuperate from stress.

So this week, see if you can discover a bit more about your stresslevels during the day. Are you mostly bored, and finding things too easy? Or are you constantly high wired, with not enough time to get back to healthy stresslevels? Or are you doing just fine, having a nice flow of stress for the best performances?

And if you think you have a busy life, see how you compare to our Queen, really interesting. Just enter your age and see what she was up to at when she was your age! Cool right??!! Here’s the link for it: http://www.keepingupwiththequeen.com

Have a great week,

Monique

According to the keeping-up-with-the-queen website, this is the queen when she was my age. However, thanks to a very attentive reader of my blog, this is not the queen, but her daughter Anne!